In earlier years corn was harvested by manually removing the ears from the standing stalks in the field and tossing them into a wagon or truck. It was then necessary to husk the ears and to remove the kernels of corn from the cob by means of a corn sheller.
More recently various corn harvesters have been developed for mechanically removing ears of corn from the stalks and thereupon separating the kernels from the husks and cobs by a thrashing operation. Harvesters of this kind have resulted in a considerable saving of manual labor.